There are very few things worse than meeting someone new and immediately forgetting their name. As much as we hate to admit it, it happens far too frequently – so I created a solution to help negate this faux pas forever more.

Using the popular automation service IFTTT, I created an Applet that adds every new contact you add as an event to your calendar, including their name and contact details. Not only is this tremendously helpful for social events, but helps with sending follow-up emails and connection requests after business events/meetings as well.

IFTTT (which stands for “If This, Then That”) works by triggering an action based on another action. These actions are limitless, adding a ton of functionality to services you already use and showing you new services you could use to do even more. If you’re not already an IFTTT user, up your game and go sign up then follow along:

Add New Contacts to Calendar Applet

Now that you have IFTTT fired up, let’s begin by navigating to our Applets page, and pressing the + to create a new Applet.

Tap on +this, then search for Contacts. Choose the relevant Contact source, then select Any New Contact.

Next, tap on +that and search for Calendars. Choose the relevant Calendar source, then select Create a Calendar Event.

For the purposes of this walkthrough, I’ve used an iCloud calendar; different calendar types have slightly different setting options. Below you’ll find all of the settings I used for my iOS Calendar, which includes a new calendar I created specifically for this purpose called “New Contacts”.

Start by selecting the calendar you want to use, under Calendar Name.

In the Event Title field, you can add Ingredients that pull in specific information; use this field to add the Ingredient called Name, and add additional text to appear in the calendar event as desired (I added “added to Contacts”).

Next for Location, leave it blank (no location information is available here), and then for Start Date select the Ingredient DateAdded.

Duration in Minutes is up to you to decide, but I like to keep it short enough to not take up a lot of space visually on my calendar, but longer enough to be able to read the full name clearly. I recommend 10-15 minutes.

Notes is where you get to be creative, choosing whatever type of information is relevant to you. I’ve chosen to set mine up to mimic the general format of a business card, with Ingredients for Name, Job Title, Organization, Phone Number, and Email.

Leave the rest of the fields blank, then press Create Action to continue.

The next page lets you Edit Title as desired, and enable/disable Notifications for whenever the Applet runs. Once you edit as desired, click Finish, and you’re all done!